Customer Reviews

God a Logs On Living and Dying

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4 star:		(1)
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A useful guide to help one discover the meaning of spirituality and the place it holds in their life. Takes the reader on a 46 day spiritual journey. Helps the reader to open their heart and mind to the deeper meaning of life and death. An outstanding guideline for those who are coming upon their final moments on this earth and those who care for them. Creates and establishes comfort and trust from the personal knowledge of the beauty of life and what lies beyond death.

God a logs is a remarkable book and gives a new meaning to death and helps you understand death is just another wonderful aspect of life.

I was going to write a nice big review because I have read many of Sam Oliver's books and articles and have the highest regard for him and his work! However the first 3 reviews here have said it all. It doesn't get any better than the words they said. Not a cop out, just the facts. I really believe that this book will help you whether you have a loved one dying or just want to try his suggestions and journal for yourself on the blank pages. Just might become a lifelong habit and wonderful way to get in touch with yourself and God! This book will go far I predict! Don't take my word for it, get one for yourself. :-)

Thanks again Sam!

"Paying Attention..." This is what the book is all about. It is paying attention to the Wisdom that, or shall I say, Who dwells deep inside us and in the very center of our experiences.

For many years, Sam Oliver has been in the mission of caring for the dying. This sets the context of the book.

In this book, Sam gets into a different way of conversing with God. He prayerfully poses two questions to himself daily: "What do you want me to notice today?" and "How do I get there?" By posing those questions, Sam allows God to draw him to a particular truth or to a nugget of wisdom that he needs to see for that particular day. He also allows God to speak to him about it and to direct him on how to go about it. He doesn't only apply the wisdom received on his area of mission and in the dying process but he also implicitly looks deep into his own experiences to see God's wisdom revealed in the very fleeting lives of those entrusted to his care.

After each of his daily encounter with God, he invites his readers to step into their own souls and to allow God to draw them to His truth and His wisdom.

This book is, in fact, a good spiritual work book and to go through the questions each day heightens one's sensitivity to the voice of God that is very much present in one's own thoughts and feelings.

This book is truly recommended for those who take care of their dying loved ones. To take care and to see a loved one in the process of dying can be a heart-breaking and desolate experience and therefore, God can be experienced as distant and cold. But, in this book, Sam Oliver accompanies those who take care of those dying and shows them how they can have a deep and meaningful experience by paying attention to God's voice deep within them and to the Wisdom that is found in their painful experience.

It is amazing to think that at the bedside of a dying loved one, one can experience the warmth of God's embrace and the light of His countenance.

As Sam Oliver writes, "Dying people show us the way into eternity..."

"The need to protect [the] dying loved one or a patient wondering what is about to happen to them reveals a place where our relationships can be guided by the Creator of us all. Such a sacred space is where God can create a path that leads us all home -" p 220

Dr. Sam Oliver's book "God a Logs on Living and Dying" is a map through territory that few of us willingly enter. Through 46 days of meditation, the reader is led not just thourgh words but through experience and interactive meditation on the lessons of living learned from the dying.

Having lived through the experience of nursing two different family members in the months before their deaths, I believe this book offers the opportunity for family members to work through their own emotions, and better support and care for a dying loved on. However, though I can appreciate it now, it may have been too difficult at the time to step back and contemplate these lessons in those moments of adjustment and grief.

Hospice and aid workers who make a career of helping the dying have the most to gain from this journal and the most opportunity to learn from the wisdom Dr. Oliver shares in these pages.

Structured as a daily journal with ample space for the user to add thoughts, realizations, prayers, and other comments this is a book to be used and reused.

It's a gift to give to yourself. We are not very good at approaching death and as a result we are easily dismayed, discouraged, and knocked off the center by death. This book is an opportunity to grasp a lifeline thrown by God in the midst of some of the most turbulent times of our life without losing the center.